Sir Frederick William Herschel was a German-born British astronomer and composer who became famous for discovering Uranus. He also discovered infrared radiation and made many other discoveries in astronomy.

A far-reaching global adventure

Inspiration for the film 400
Years of the Telescope struck in fall 2006
when Interstellar Studios’ producer/writer Kris Koenig, and Associate
Producer Anita Ingrao, who were wrapping production on a corporate video
for W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, on the summit of Mauna Kea, learned
about the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) initiative. Kicking off
in January, 2009, the IYA will
be a far-reaching global venture celebrating the 400-year anniversary
of Galileo’s astronomical use
of the telescope and promoting better understanding of astronomy and
appreciation of our changing cosmos.

Galileo’s profound impact on astronomy
was a natural subject for Kris, Anita and Dan Koehler, whose Interstellar
Studios, based in Chico, California, specializes in producing
multimedia productions that entertain and educate the public about the
wonders of space, from high-def documentaries to planetarium programs,
web programming and interactive kiosk design.

Kris’s long-time passion
for astronomy has taken him and Anita all over the world, including most
of the major observatories in the western hemisphere, earning them
two Emmy® Awards
in 2005 for the ten-hour PBS telecourse Astronomy:
Observations and Theories. Kris is also founder and director of the Kiwanis
Chico Community Observatory, one of the most successful community observatories,
and the nation’s
only outdoor planetarium. Anita is the observatory's curator.

An "historic anniversary"

“This historic anniversary seemed a great opportunity to create a film
that would be viable in the U.S. and all over the world, showing how the telescope
changed our view of the universe,” said Kris. “It’s a straight-ahead
documentary that reflects the current state of astronomy with an appreciation
for the past.”

To develop the documentary, Interstellar Studios assembled
a team of “Who’s Who” in astronomy — all the best and
brightest in astronomy and cosmology — and went to work on a film treatment.
The writing team includes Kris and Donald
Goldsmith, a well-known astronomy populist who is part of the Carl Sagan Cosmos
Team and writer on the PBS series,
The Astronomers. Rounding
out the writing team is Albert Van Helden, a leading historian on the development
of the telescope.

As the production crew began interviews of renowned astronomers
and cosmologists, transcripts of the interviews shaped the final script and
direction of the film. “We read the transcripts, then wrote the real script,” said
Kris.

Due to run time restrictions, the team was able to use only a fraction
of the interviews in the 55-minute documentary. “Astronomy is a subject
so complex and rich in history, there’s no way to do it justice, even
in a six-hour mini-series,” admits Kris, noting that all 70 hours of
interviews of the world’s foremost astronomers and cosmologists are available
online. Interview clips are searchable by keywords so anyone
interested in astronomy or telescopes can do future research